From adding a dash of humour to choosing the perfect panels, Simone Ferriero shares some pro advice.

Al Hajar Mountains in OmanL_B_Photography/Shutters​tock A section of Earth’s mantle beneath Oman appears to be unusually warm, in what researchers say may be the first known “ghost plume” – a column of hot rock emanating from the lower mantle without apparent volcanic activity on the surface. Mantle plumes are mysterious upwellings of molten rock believed to transmit heat from the core-mantle boundary to the Earth’s surface, far from the edges of tectonic plates. There are a dozen or so examples thought to occur underneath the middle of continental plates – for instance, beneath Yellowstone and the East African rift. “But these are all cases where you do have surface volcanism,” says Simone Pilia at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia. Oman has no such volcanic clues. Pilia first came to suspect there was a plume beneath Oman “serendipitously” after he began analysing new seismic data from the region. He observed the velocity of waves generated by distant earthquakes slowed down in a cylindrical area beneath eastern Oman, indicating the rocks there were less rigid than the surrounding material due to high temperatures. Other independent seismic measurements showed key boundaries where minerals deep in the Earth change phases in a way consistent with a hot plume. These measurements suggest the plume extends more than 660 kilometres below the surface. The presence of a plume could also explain why the region has continued to rise in elevation long after tectonic compression – a geological process where the Earth’s crust is squeezed together – stopped. It also fits with models of what could have caused a shift in the movement of the Indian tectonic plate. “The more we gathered evidence, the more we were convinced that it is a plume,” says Pilia, who named the geologic feature the “Dani plume” after his son. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month. Sign up to newsletter “It’s plausible” that a plume indeed exists there, says Saskia Goes at Imperial College London, adding the study is “thorough”. However, she points out narrow plumes are notoriously difficult to detect. If it does exist, however, the presence of a “ghost plume” contained within the mantle by the relatively thick rocky layer beneath Oman would suggest there are others, says Pilia. “We’re convinced that the Dani plume is not alone.” If there are many other hidden plumes, it could mean more heat from the core is flowing directly through the mantle via plumes, rather than through slower convection, says Goes. “It has implications, potentially, for the evolution of the Earth if we get a different estimate of how much heat comes out of the mantle.” Journal referenceEarth and Planetary Science Letters DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2025.119467 Topics:

Last year, MACK Books published Architecture from Below, which anthologized writings by the French Brazilian architect, theorist, and painter Sérgio Ferro. (Douglas Spencer reviewed it for AN.) Now, MACK follows with Design and the Building Site and Complementary Essays, the second in the trilogy of books dedicated to Ferro’s scholarship. The following excerpt of the author’s 2023 preface to the English edition, which preserves its British phrasing, captures Ferro’s realization about the working conditions of construction sites in Brasília. The sentiment is likely relatable even today for young architects as they discover how drawings become buildings. Design and the Building Site and Complementary Essays will be released on May 22. If I remember correctly, it was in 1958 or 1959, when Rodrigo and I were second- or third year architecture students at FAUUSP, that my father, the real estate developer Armando Simone Pereira, commissioned us to design two large office buildings and eleven shops in Brasilia, which was then under construction. Of course, we were not adequately prepared for such an undertaking. Fortunately, Oscar Niemeyer and his team, who were responsible for overseeing the construction of the capital, had drawn up a detailed document determining the essential characteristics of all the private sector buildings. We followed these prescriptions to the letter, which saved us from disaster. Nowadays, it is hard to imagine the degree to which the construction of Brasilia inspired enthusiasm and professional pride in the country’s architects. And in the national imagination, the city’s establishment in the supposedly unpopulated hinterland evoked a re-founding of Brazil. Up until that point, the occupation of our immense territory had been reduced to a collection of arborescent communication routes, generally converging upon some river, following it up to the Atlantic Ocean. Through its ports, agricultural or extractive commodities produced by enslaved peoples or their substitutes passed towards the metropolises; goods were exchanged in the metropolises for more elaborate products, which took the opposite route. Our national identity was summed up in a few symbols, such as the anthem or the flag, and this scattering of paths pointing overseas. Brasilia would radically change this situation, or so we believed. It would create a central hub where the internal communication routes could converge, linking together hithertoseparate junctions, stimulating trade and economic progress in the country’s interior. It was as if, for the first time, we were taking care of ourselves. At the nucleus of this centripetal movement, architecture would embody the renaissance. And at the naval of the nucleus, the symbolic mandala of this utopia: the cathedral. Rodrigo and I got caught up in the euphoria. And perhaps more so than our colleagues, because we were taking part in the adventure with ‘our’ designs. The reality was very different — but we did not know that yet. At that time, architects in Brazil were responsible for verifying that the construction was in line with the design. We had already monitored some of our first building sites. But the construction company in charge of them, Osmar Souza e Silva’s CENPLA, specialized in the building sites of modernist architects from the so-called Escola Paulista led by Vilanova Artigas (which we aspired to be a part of, like the pretentious students we were). Osmar was very attentive to his clients and his workers, who formed a supportive and helpful team. He was even more careful with us, because he knew how inexperienced we were. I believe that the CENPLA was particularly important in São Paulo modernism: with its congeniality, it facilitated experimentation, but for the same reason, it deceived novices like us about the reality of other building sites. Consequently, Rodrigo and I travelled to Brasilia several times to check that the constructions followed ‘our’ designs and to resolve any issues. From the very first trip, our little bubble burst. Our building sites, like all the others in the future capital, bore no relation to Osmar’s. They were more like a branch of hell. A huge, muddy wasteland, in which a few cranes, pile drivers, tractors, and excavators dotted the mound of scaffolding occupied by thousands of skinny, seemingly exhausted wretches, who were nevertheless driven on by the shouts of master builders and foremen, in turn pressured by the imminence of the fateful inauguration date. Surrounding or huddled underneath the marquees of buildings under construction, entire families, equally skeletal and ragged, were waiting for some accident or death to open up a vacancy. In contact only with the master builders, and under close surveillance so we would not speak to the workers, we were not allowed to see what comrades who had worked on these sites later told us in prison: suicide abounded; escape was known to be futile in the unpopulated surroundings with no viable roads; fatal accidents were often caused by weakness due to chronic diarrhoea, brought on by rotten food that came from far away; outright theft took place in the calculation of wages and expenses in the contractor’s grocery store; camps were surrounded by law enforcement. I repeat this anecdote yet again not to invoke the benevolence of potential readers, but rather to point out the conditions that, in my opinion, allowed two students (Flávio Império joined us a little later) still in their professional infancy to quickly adopt positions that were contrary to the usual stance of architects. As the project was more Oscar Niemeyer’s than it was our own, we did not have the same emotional attachment that is understandably engendered between real authors and their designs. We had not yet been imbued with the charm and aura of the métier. And the only building sites we had visited thus far, Osmar’s, were incomparable to those we discovered in Brasilia. In short, our youthfulness and unpreparedness up against an unbearable situation made us react almost immediately to the profession’s satisfied doxa. Unprepared and young perhaps, but already with Marx by our side. Rodrigo and I joined the student cell of the Brazilian Communist Party during our first year at university. In itself, this did not help us much: the Party’s Marxism, revised in the interests of the USSR, was pitiful. Even high-level leaders rarely went beyond the first chapter of Capital. But at the end of the 1950s, the effervescence of the years to come was already nascent:  […] this extraordinary revival […] the rediscovery of Marxism and the great dialectical texts and traditions in the 1960s: an excitement that identifies a forgotten or repressed moment of the past as the new and subversive, and learns the dialectical grammar of a Hegel or an Adorno, a Marx or a Lukács, like a foreign language that has resources unavailable in our own. And what is more: the Chinese and Cuban revolutions, the war in Vietnam, guerrilla warfare of all kinds, national liberation movements, and a rare libertarian disposition in contemporary history, totally averse to fanaticism and respect for ideological apparatuses of (any) state or institution. Going against the grain was almost the norm. We were of course no more than contemporaries of our time. We were soon able to position ourselves from chapters 13, 14, and 15 of Capital, but only because we could constantly cross-reference Marx with our observations from well-contrasted building sites and do our own experimenting. As soon as we identified construction as manufacture, for example, thanks to the willingness and even encouragement of two friends and clients, Boris Fausto and Bernardo Issler, I was able to test both types of manufacture — organic and heterogeneous — on similar-sized projects taking place simultaneously, in order to find out which would be most convenient for the situation in Brazil, particularly in São Paulo. Despite the scientific shortcomings of these tests, they sufficed for us to select organic manufacture. Arquitetura Nova had defined its line of practice, studies, and research. There were other sources that were central to our theory and practice. Flávio Império was one of the founders of the Teatro de Arena, undoubtedly the vanguard of popular, militant theatre in Brazil. He won practically every set design award. He brought us his marvelous findings in spatial condensation and malleability, and in the creative diversion of techniques and material—appropriate devices for an underdeveloped country. This is what helped us pave the way to reformulating the reigning design paradigms.  We had to do what Flávio had done in the theatre: thoroughly rethink how to be an architect. Upend the perspective. The way we were taught was to start from a desired result; then others would take care of getting there, no matter how. We, on the other hand, set out to go down to the building site and accompany those carrying out the labor itself, those who actually build, the formally subsumed workers in manufacture who are increasingly deprived of the knowledge and know-how presupposed by this kind of subsumption. We should have been fostering the reconstitution of this knowledge and know-how—not so as to fulfil this assumption, but in order to reinvigorate the other side of this assumption according to Marx: the historical rebellion of the manufacture worker, especially the construction worker. We had to rekindle the demand that fueled this rebellion: total self-determination, and not just that of the manual operation as such. Our aim was above all political and ethical. Aesthetics only mattered by way of what it included—ethics. Instead of estética, we wrote est ética [this is ethics]. We wanted to make building sites into nests for the return of revolutionary syndicalism, which we ourselves had yet to discover. Sérgio Ferro, born in Brazil in 1938, studied architecture at FAUUSP, São Paulo. In the 1960s, he joined the Brazilian communist party and started, along with Rodrigo Lefevre and Flávio Império, the collective known as Arquitetura Nova. After being arrested by the military dictatorship that took power in Brazil in 1964, he moved to France as an exile. As a painter and a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble, where he founded the Dessin/Chantier laboratory, he engaged in extensive research which resulted in several publications, exhibitions, and awards in Brazil and in France, including the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 1992. Following his retirement from teaching, Ferro continues to research, write, and paint.

By OLIVER WEBB Images courtesy of Peter Hjorth and Zentropa, except where noted. Peter Hjorth. (Photo courtesy of Danish Film Institute) When Peter Hjorth first started out, visual effects were virtually non-existent in the Danish film industry. “We had one guy at the lab who did work on the Oxberry [rostrum animation camera], and I worked at a video production company,” Hjorth states. “I trained as a videotape editor, then it went into online. When the first digital tools arrived, I joined one of the hot post places where they got the first digital VTRs. All my first years of experience were with commercial clients and music videos and making the transition from analogue to digital in video post-production. I did a little bit of work for friends of mine where we actually did it at the lab. I’m old enough to have done stuff with the optical printer and waiting for weeks to get it right. There were some very early start-ups in Copenhagen doing files to film, and I started working with them.” Hjorth’s first feature film came in 1998 with Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen, where he served as camera operator and digital consultant. Festen also marked Hjorth’s first foray into the Dogme 95 movement. “We shot on MiniDV, and I was attached to the whole project. I shot the second camera and then was asked if I could do some advanced work in visual effects for commercials. I was then asked by Lars von Trier to help out on Dancer in the Dark when he was starting.” Working on Dancer in the Dark marked the beginning of Hjorth’s frequent collaborations with Lars von Trier. “That was sort of a two-fold thing because we had 100 DV cameras that needed some kind of infrastructure to work, and my television background was good for that. We also needed some visual effects work to get rid of some cameras. If you put 100 cameras in the same set, you’re going to get into a visual effects situation. So, I did that and worked on the editing. At that time, people were a little bit afraid of Lars, but I’m up for anything. We had a great time, especially during the editing and post-production.” Hjorth was pleased with his collaboration with director Tarik Saleh on the U.S. film The Contractor (2022), on which he served as Production Visual Effects Supervisor. (Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures) “There’s a special thing about Denmark, which is that we tend to all stick together… It’s not competitive in this way because people will get the jobs they get. Everybody realizes we have to work together, and what really matters is that we put something on screen that gives the audience a good experience.” —Peter Hjorth, Visual Effects Supervisor Initially, production experimented with a wall of cameras, where Hjorth did a test compositing that into an image. Von Trier found it interesting, but felt it wasn’t right for Dancer in the Dark. He later came back to Hjorth with Dogville and explained that he wanted to implement the multi-camera technique for this project. “Lars didn’t want linear perspective, instead he wanted something more like visual arts, fine arts, a notion of perspective, even cubism maybe,” Hjorth adds. “At that point in between those two projects, I did the first big Vinterberg film, It’s All About Love.” Hjorth worked as Visual Effects Supervisor for the film. “We did lots of precise visual effects, matched lenses, matched camera heights, everything by the book. Then I went into this totally crazy project for Lars and really developed a close understanding of what Lars wanted. We’ve done eight feature films and a TV series together. The last one was the third season of The Kingdom. I also did his last feature film, The House That Jack Built. I was Production Visual Effects Supervisor on all the stuff in-between, such as Antichrist and Melancholia.” Hjorth explains that he was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time. “Working on those projects has given me a network all over Europe with good people. We had some decent budgets, and people were thrilled to work on Lars’ films. I’ve made some excellent friends and good connections. If you wanted VFX for a movie in the early 2000s you hired someone from a post house for a specific scene. The notion of a production visual effects supervisor was not very common in Denmark, and the role has since developed. I find that my contribution is now mostly in pre-production. With post-production, I usually take a step back and leave it to the vendors to get right, but I’m happy I’ve been able to assist when the need arose.”  Throughout his career, Hjorth has worked across the board as camera operator, colorist and editor. “I did some camera work on the side for music videos, and so on,” he explains. “When I speak to the DP and the gaffers, I know the language. I wouldn’t say I did great work as a cinematographer, but I know the language, the equipment and the limitations. Actually, my first job before even going into post-production was as an electrician. I used to work on really old, heavy movie lights back in the day, so I also know a little bit about departments on set and how it works. That has made it a little bit easier for me to be on set because as a visual effects supervisor, it can be a super scary experience. If you feel like a tourist, it’s just horrible. I, of course, worked on the Dogme 95 films, where we worked closely with the actors, and I’m not afraid to have a conversation with an actor. No matter how good the VFX is, if the actors don’t believe a scene they are in, it doesn’t work. So, I’ve been lucky to do a bit of everything, and I feel blessed that things turned out the way that they did.” Starting out in Dogme 95 also proved to be a huge learning curve when it came to film language and understanding how to work within a set of specific rules and guidelines. The movement was founded by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the Dogme 95 Manifesto. The Manifesto consisted of 10 rules, which included: camera must be handheld, shooting must be done on location and special lighting isn’t allowed. “It’s a good background to have,” Hjorth states. “We’ve had rules for all of the films I’ve made with Lars, even on projects such as Melancholia.” Setting rules hasn’t been limited to Danish cinema and extends beyond that. “We made kind of a set of rules for the films I’ve made with Ali Abbasi, and that’s always made things easier,” Hjorth says. “He first called me when he was in film school. He was doing some early tests and was audacious enough to ask me for a VFX shot. It was hard to understand what he was saying, but then he talked about a scene with a guy coming out of a cake and he kills his brother, slicing his throat with a knife, and he wanted to see that in close-up. I appreciate younger directors calling and asking me to work with them, and it has really paid off.” Hjorth was the Visual Effects Supervisor for several episodes of the 1994-2022 TV series The Kingdom and The Kingdom: Exodus. Hjorth has worked on eight feature films and a TV series with director Lars von Trier. (Photo: Peter Hjorth) Hjorth with director Lars von Trier, left, on the set of The Kingdom: Exodus. (Photo: Peter Hjorth) Hjorth was Visual Effects Supervisor on The House That Jack Built, directed by Lars von Trier. (Photo: Christian Geisnæs) Peter Hjorth was recognized for his work as European Visual Effects Supervisor for the Swedish-Danish feature and Cannes winner Border, directed by Ali Abbasi. (Image courtesy of Meta Film Stockholm) Hjorth was Production Visual Effects Supervisor on Lamb (2021), directed by Valdimar Jóhannsson. (Image courtesy of Go To Sheep and A24) Hjorth with Simone Grau Roney, Production Designer on The House That Jack Built (2018), directed by Lars von Trier. Choosing a favorite visual effect shot from his career, however, is a difficult task for Hjorth, though he’s particularly proud of the work achieved on Dogville. “Nobody noticed how messed up it was,” he explains. “Toward the end of the movie, you can see the masks, and you can see that we didn’t bother to match the grain between layers and all that. We did the first test on Flame, and when we went to layer 99, it just stopped working. We ended up doing it with combustion software, which was crummy, but it worked, and we got the shots done. I think we went to 170 layers on the opening shot. It was a learning experience for everybody involved, and I still work with some of those same people, most recently on the Netflix series I did this spring.” Hjorth worked as Visual Effects Supervisor on Holy Spider, directed by Ali Abbasi. (Photo: Nadim Carlsen. Image courtesy of Profile Pictures)   Hjorth served as Visual Effects Supervisor on Antichrist (2009), directed by Lars von Trier. Hjorth believes that there’s been an immense upgrade in professionalism in Denmark in the years since he’s worked in the business. “The beginning was much less industrial. The directors that I have worked with tend to work with me multiple times. A lot of the stuff I say in the first meeting is really defining for how that [job] is going to go. I’ve been so lucky to work on films that I actually think made a difference. It has mostly been art house films with limited budgets and resources. When we work together with the same producer or director a few times, sometimes they come back and say, ‘We’d like to have a creature or some special thing.’ It’s an evolving process.” Hjorth worked as Visual Effects Supervisor on the Lars von Trier-directed Melancholia (2011), and was also credited for his astrophotography of auroras for the film. (Image courtesy Magnolia Pictures) Hjorth was Visual Effects Supervisor on Dogville (2003), directed by Lars von Trier. Hjorth worked with director Lars von Trier to develop the Automavision technique, which was credited with the cinematography for The Boss of It All (2006). A computer algorithm randomly changes the camera’s tilt, pan, focal length and/or positioning as well as the sound recording without being actively operated by the cinematographer. Hjorth works closely with stunts, special effects makeup, animal wranglers and other specialists. “I know the craft and what they need from me. They know more about what’s going to be effective on screen, so I just leave them to it and make sure they have what they need. Same thing with animals and visual effects, makeup and stuff like that, physical things. You know I have a bit of a reputation for trying to get as many pieces of the puzzle as possible with a camera. Some production VFX people get quotes from, say, three different vendors, and then they pick all the cheapest bids for each sequence or shot, and that’s how they get down in budget. I tried to avoid that. I’d rather actually sit down with the director and say for example, ‘We should have some breathing space here.’” When it comes to the future of visual effects in Denmark, Hjorth takes an optimistic view. “I think this trend that we have more production supervisors is basically going to continue in the way that even if you have very little work, you hire someone from the get-go and you make sure that’s a balance in ambition and resources. There’s a special thing about Denmark, which is that we tend to all stick together, even people who are not in the same line of work. We have lots of experience sharing. There are no limits to who you can call and ask questions. It’s not competitive in this way because people will get the jobs they get. Everybody realizes we have to work together, and what really matters is that we put something on screen that gives the audience a good experience.”

Marc Simonetti is a French concept artist and illustrator. Best known for his work on GRR Martin’s books “A Song of Ice and Fire”, and his Iron Throne, he’s also illustrated some of the most well-known fantasy and SciFi novels, such as The Discworld by Terry Pratchett, The Royal Assassin trilogy by Robin Hobb, Terry Goodkind’s “Sword of truth”, or Dune Saga by Frank Herbert.He’s also worked for many video game companies such as Activision, Ubisoft, Magic The Gathering, EA, Square Enix, and King Isle Entertainment. He has just released an art book, “Coverama,” and is currently working on several projects, including long feature films and concept art for video games, as a freelancer.His most recent work as a concept artist, which includes creating visual development and staging dramatic lighting and designs, is featured in Aladdin, Maleficent 2, Aquaman 2, and the upcoming Transformers Movie, Rise of the Beasts, among many others. He also serves as the Art Director at DNEG, one of the world’s leading visual effects and animation studios.

Gironda Residence | © Simone Bossi Located just steps from Piazza del Popolo in Ravenna, the Renaissance-era Casa Guaccimanni holds centuries of architectural and historical weight. Constructed in the fifteenth century for the Venetian podestà Nicolò Giustinian, the building evolved through noble ownership and later became home to Vittorio and Alessandro Guaccimanni, sons of Risorgimento figure Luigi Guaccimanni. Architecturally, the structure is characterized by a tripartite plan with a central corridor flanked by large rooms, an interior courtyard with a double loggia, and decorative elements spanning Renaissance to Neoclassical periods. Once concealed beneath plaster, its frescoed veranda and exposed wooden ceilings speak to a layered history of intervention, concealment, and rediscovery. Gironda Residence in Casa Guaccimanni Technical Information Architects1-13: Giovanni Mecozzi Architetti Location: Casa Guaccimanni, Via Armando Diaz, Ravenna, Italy Client: Emanuela Docimo Project Years: 2022 – 2024 Original Structure: 15th Century Photographs: © Andrea Sestito, © Simone Bossi, © Omar Sartor The new and the old never touch, but gently brush against each other, maintaining a distance capable of generating tension. – Giovanni Mecozzi Gironda Residence in Casa Guaccimanni Photographs © Omar Sartor © Andrea Sestito © Andrea Sestito © Andrea Sestito © Omar Sartor © Simone Bossi © Simone Bossi © Simone Bossi © Omar Sartor © Omar Sartor © Omar Sartor © Andrea Sestito © Omar Sartor Design Intent: Reversibility and Temporal Tension The recent architectural project by Giovanni Mecozzi Architetti centers on the noble floor of the palazzo, reinterpreted as a contemporary residence named Gironda. Rather than imposing a new visual regime onto the historic shell, the intervention operates with restraint, foregrounding the building’s original character while establishing new spatial and material conditions. At the core of the project lies a design philosophy rooted in reversibility. Mecozzi’s intervention resists permanence. The furnishings and spatial devices introduced into the historic rooms are self-supporting and detached from the structure. No new element makes physical contact with the floors, ceilings, or walls, preserving the integrity of the original surfaces. This strategy avoids irreversible alterations and allows the architecture to remain temporally flexible. Architect Giovanni Mecozzi articulates this approach succinctly: “The new and the old never touch, but gently brush against each other, maintaining a distance capable of generating tension.” This spatial tension is not decorative but conceptual, prompting occupants to consider the relationship between historical continuity and contemporary transformation. The design does not attempt to erase time but rather exposes its layers through careful juxtaposition. The project draws conceptual and chromatic inspiration from Ravenna’s early Christian and Byzantine mosaics. Rather than replicate ornamental motifs, Mecozzi extracts abstract qualities such as color, luminosity, and surface texture, integrating them as subtle spatial references throughout the residence. Gironda Residence Material Strategy Access to the residence is organized through a longitudinal hallway that bisects the plan, connecting a balcony on the north façade with a loggia overlooking the garden to the south. This corridor becomes a spine for circulation and orientation, punctuated by entries into five main rooms: the kitchen, veranda, and three independent suites. Each suite functions as a self-contained spatial environment. The original large rooms have been reimagined with integrated volumes housing diverse domestic functions: bathrooms, saunas, walk-in closets, reading nooks, and home cinemas. These new programmatic layers are embedded within freestanding furniture structures, which operate more as inhabitable objects than architectural partitions. Color becomes an operative tool for spatial differentiation. The three principal suites, the Gold Room, the Blue Room, and the Green Room, are introduced chromatically through thresholds that face the main corridor. This prelude of color sets the tone for each room’s unique interior experience. Within, glossy glass tiles, gilded surfaces, and a reduced palette of materials establish a scenographic yet restrained environment. The flooring, a Venetian terrazzo installed during earlier restoration work in the 2000s, has been retained. Its beveled borders and rounded corners respond to the proportions of each room, reinforcing a visual continuity that binds the new interventions with the inherited context. In contrast to the historical envelope, the furniture and spatial devices employ a language of monochromatic forms and minimal detailing, occasionally verging on neoplastic abstraction. This tension between old ornament and new abstraction is one of the project’s defining features. Furnishings curated by Atelier Biagetti, known for their theatrical and ironic sensibility, further enrich the atmosphere. These pieces do not mimic the historical setting but create moments of visual friction and playful ambiguity, enhancing the multi-temporal character of the interiors. Architectural Significance and Cultural Dialogue The Gironda residence exemplifies a growing discourse in contemporary architecture around adaptive reuse that neither mimics nor erases the past. Rather than treating heritage as a constraint or an aesthetic to be curated, Mecozzi engages it as an active agent in spatial transformation. The project is a case study in reversible architecture, where temporality is embedded in the design, not just its historical references. This intervention prompts broader questions about the role of preservation in contemporary practice. Can architectural interventions occupy historic contexts without becoming parasitic or nostalgic? Mecozzi’s project suggests that they can adopt a posture of critical distance and conceptual clarity. Gironda does not attempt to restore Casa Guaccimanni to a previous state or impose a singular vision of modernity. Instead, it crafts a dialogue between past and present, structured through spatial strategies, material choices, and chromatic cues. In doing so, it opens a new chapter in the building’s ongoing life, one that is fully contemporary yet deeply rooted in architectural memory. Gironda Residence in Casa Guaccimanni Plans Floor Plan | © Giovanni Mecozzi Architetti Golden Room Layout | © Giovanni Mecozzi Architetti Door Detail | © Giovanni Mecozzi Architetti Gironda Residence in Casa Guaccimanni Image Gallery About Giovanni Mecozzi Giovanni Mecozzi is an Italian architect based in Ravenna, Italy, and the founder of Giovanni Mecozzi Architetti (GMA), a multidisciplinary studio specializing in architecture, interior design, and landscape projects. After graduating from the University of Ferrara with an architecture degree, Mecozzi gained international experience working in Spain, including collaborating with Mendaro Arquitectos in Madrid. Upon returning to Italy, he co-founded GMA, focusing on projects emphasizing the relationship between architecture, the client, and the context, with a particular interest in renovating and transforming historical buildings.  Credits and Additional Notes Design Team: Giovanni Mecozzi, Cecilia Verdini, Filippo Minghetti Construction: Edilcostruzioni (Leoni Andrea) Electrical Systems: Elektra Service (Andrea Baiardi) Mechanical and Hydraulic Systems: Nuova OLP Structural Alterations: Not applicable (intervention is fully reversible) Custom Furniture: Idea Legno (Paolo Berdondini) Curtains and Fabrics: Selezione Arredamenti, Ravenna Lighting: Viabizzuno (via Tutto Luce, Cesena) Resin Coatings and Flooring: Kerakoll Rugs and Carpeting: Centro Moquette, Rimini Bathroom Furnishings: Salaroli, Ravenna Furniture, Artwork, and Design Objects Selected by: Atelier Biagetti (Milan) Furniture Designers: Alberto Biagetti and Laura Baldassarri

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" Together with Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Italy's Ministry of Environment and Energy Security, CIHEAM Bari, the World Bank Group's Connect4Climate program, Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and Höweler + Yoon have unveiled AquaPraça, a floating cultural plaza that will serve as the focal point of COP30 in Belém, Brazil. AquaPraça serves as a forum for international climate discussion by utilizing sensing technologies and Archimedes' principle to adjust to shifting sea levels and occupancy demands. It will make its transatlantic journey to the Amazonian city, where it will become a permanent cultural landmark, after making its premiere at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. The architecture of AquaPraça, which spans more than 400 square meters (4,000 square feet), physically carves out public space from the sea, establishing a tangible conversation between natural forces and the constructed environment. Using the concepts of buoyancy, displacement, and equilibrium, the submersible structure floats. AquaPraça continuously adjusts its holding and releasing capacity to keep a low freeboard with the surrounding water level. At eye level, the audience witnesses the dynamic variations of sea level rise, resulting in fresh insights into urban and ecological systems. AquaPraça's aim is to act as a civic catalyst. It can accommodate more than 150 people for cultural events, workshops, symposia, and exhibitions. It will make its sustainable journey to Belém after making its debut at the Biennale Architettura in September 2025. There, it will be a crucial component of the Italian Pavilion at COP 30, showcasing Italy's architectural and climate action thoughts to a worldwide audience. As a permanent legacy of the summit in the Amazon, the platform will continue to be a component of Belém's cultural infrastructure after the summit. A special international alliance makes AquaPraça possible. It was started in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Italy. It is also supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the World Bank's Connect4Climate program, CIHEAM Bari, Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and others. The establishment emphasizes the goal of bringing disparate communities together and promoting ecological thought globally. There is a formal procedure in place for expressing interest."In 1979, Aldo Rossi launched the Teatro del Mondo at the first Biennale Architettura, positing that architecture could engage with the past," said Carlo Ratti, professor at MIT and the Politecnico di Milano, co-founder of CRA, and curator of the Biennale Architettura 2025.""Today, AquaPraça shows how architecture can engage with the future—by responding to climate and engaging with nature rather than resisting it,” Ratti added."AquaPraça lets visitors meet the sea at eye level," said Eric Höweler, co-founder of Höweler + Yoon and a Professor at Harvard University. "Its sloping surfaces and shifting levels embody a delicate equilibrium." "It’s a platform, both literal and figurative, for deepening our collective understanding and experience of sea level rise and the impacts of climate change on global cities and communities," added J. Meejin Yoon, co-founder of Höweler + Yoon and the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean at Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, “and seeking collective solutions."Image © Agnese BediniImage © Agnese BediniImage © Agnese BediniImage © Agnese BediniImage © Agnese BediniImage © Agnese BediniLeading cutting-edge steel construction firm Cimolai is now building AquaPraça in northeastern Italy. It will be exhibited on September 4, 2025, at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, before traveling to Brazil. A permanent floating monument in the Amazon, it will be anchored in Belém from November 10–21, 2025, as part of the Italy Pavilion at COP30. It is an architectural example of flexibility and communication in the face of climate change.Project factsProject name: AquaPraçaArchitects: CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati (Coordinator) and Höweler + Yoon ArchitectureTeam MembersCRA-Carlo Ratti Associati: Carlo Ratti (Principal), Andrea Cassi (Principal), Luca Bussolino (Strategy), Gizem Veral (Architect), Sonia Simone (Architect), Rodolfo Siccardi (Senior Architect), Gary di Silvio (Architect/3D Artist), Pasquale Milieri (Architect/3D Artist), Gianluca Zimbardi (Architect/3D Artist); Höweler + Yoon Architecture: J Meejin Yoon (Principal), Eric Höweler (Principal), Asli Baran Grace (Project manager), Shuang Chen (Designer), Selin Sahin (researcher), David Hamm (Technical Advisor) Supporters: Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale; Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Sicurezza Energetica; Bloomberg Philanthropies; Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and PlanningIn collaboration with: Ciheam Bari, the World Bank Group’s Connect4Climate Program Technical Collaborators: Elettra Bordonaro, Argun Paragamyan, and Luciana Martinez, Light Follows Behaviour; Cristiano Bottino, Studio FM; Mykola Murashko, Davide Spina, Julio Ramirez, and Eren Sezer, Maestro Technologies; Corrado Curti, IngeMBP; Luca Infanti, Luca Vian, Simone Andreatta, Filippo Bellomo, and Mario Nattero, CIMOLAI; Roberto Prever and Antonio Vatta, NAOS; Ruben Pescara and Lodovica Bontempelli, NMLex; Domenico Perrotta, DP38.All images courtesy of CRA and Höweler + Yoon Architecture.All exhibition images © Agnese Bedini.> via Carlo Ratti Associati

David Brickley is something of a social marketing pioneer. In 2011, he founded STN Digital, a leading social-first digital marketing company in sports and entertainment. STN now has more than 50 employees and creates hundreds of pieces of content daily for partners like ESPN, Warner Bros., NBC Sports, Under Armour, the Philadelphia Phillies, and NBA star Jayson Tatum, among dozens of others. The company helped Elton John launch his TikTok. In 2023, digital sports viewership surpassed traditional television viewers for the first time. Forty-three percent of young adult sports fans follow their favorite league on social media, 54% follow their favorite athlete, and 32% of all sports fans use social media while watching games. Brickley and STN have been at the forefront of this social-first revolution. Brickley never wanted to start a social marketing agency. But when Kobe Bryant opens a door—even by accident—you walk through. Building a business A lifelong Lakers fan who grew up east of Los Angeles, Brickley took a job in 2011 as a producer at Fox Sports Radio with the dream of hosting his own sports talk radio show. “I thought I should have my own afternoon show,” he said. “My program director thought differently.” Shut down by the higher-ups, Brickey became an entrepreneur by necessity. He used Fox Sports AV equipment and studio space after hours to launch his own YouTube channel. At the time, original sports content on the platform was scarce. His content regularly made it on YouTube’s front page, which grew his profile enough for him to start working directly with professional athletes, eventually landing Bryant as a client in 2013. In an exclusive interview, Brickley spoke with Fast Company about his evolution into a digital maven, sharing his insights on how social audience habits have changed, how he sees them evolving in the future, and how any company can build a social content strategy that works. The interview has been edited and condensed. How did you land Kobe Bryant as a client when you were just getting started as a small shop? It started with good karma. I did a ton of favors for the publicist of Matt Barnes, who was a Lakers player at the time, and as a favor, I interviewed his twins after they got on the honor roll at their elementary school. In exchange, I got a 10-minute one-on-one with Matt. Then one day I was at a boxing class and I ran into his publicist. She mentioned she was working with Kobe, so I asked if I could send over some ideas. Because of all those favors I’d done, she let me pitch Kobe the concept of the “Kobe Minute”—a 60-second weekly video about his on-court and off-court successes. They loved it because we could highlight his charitable work without it feeling self-promotional. How did creating content for Kobe and his team open your eyes to the idea of creating a social marketing agency? The Kobe opportunity was the epiphany moment. I had just reached out to my childhood hero about working together, and he said yes. So I realized if I could land Kobe, I could reach other athletes and teams too. We built an Excel sheet with all 32 NFL teams, found every email, and reached out. Seven hopped on calls, three wanted proposals, and the Minnesota Vikings were willing to try us out as a partner. It was pure bootstrapped cold outreach. Being able to create your own destiny without relying on someone else for opportunity was intoxicating. You started STN Digital basically from scratch. What struggles were your clients having when creating original content—specifically for social—and how did you position yourself as the solution? Back in 2013, every sports entity had social channels—the Facebooks and Twitters. But they weren’t posting original content. They had these audiences but didn’t know how to engage them. Social was just a PR dump of press releases and super boring, non-fan-centric content. So my message was, “We understand fans, we understand what the sports fan wants, and we can curate content specifically on social that speaks to them.” You gotta understand that at that time, a fan-first approach of speaking authentically about topics fans cared about didn’t exist. Now, as we transition to 2025, every CEO, president, CMO in the world is starting to think about a social-first approach, which is awesome to see. How does the agency work? In what ways do partners deploy your services and expertise on a given social marketing campaign or initiative? Our clients use us in one of two ways. Usually, they’ll either hire us as a world-class social media department and we run everything A to Z—copywriting, content, analytics, everything—or they’ll bolt us on as a world-class content house. In that case, they have an incredible team already, but they add us on top because their team doesn’t have three and a half hours to dream up a bunch of dope ideas in a whiteboard session or simply need more engaging content for all their initiatives. ESPN has a 75-person social team with incredible engines internally, but we’re able to be that supercharger to take them from 99% potential to hopefully 125% potential. What’s an example of a creative campaign you’ve executed that you’re really proud of? Our work with the Indiana Fever during the Caitlin Clark draft just won a Webby. My team spent 70 to 80 hours creating this video of a Toy Story-esque action figure of Caitlin Clark dribbling around her bedroom, shooting hoops. It got around 10 million views on TikTok alone and 500,000 engagements. What’s interesting is we’re seeing lo-fi content outperform hi-fi content by 40% more views and 30% more engagements on average. But this high-production piece was thumb-stopping creative that nobody else was posting—something that made people think, I gotta watch the rest of this. It’s something the Fever and we are super proud to have collaborated on. What are some of the biggest misconceptions you see about social marketing content, and what strategies that may seem counterintuitive actually work? I look at social media as upper-funnel fan engagement—building community, credibility, and trust. But a lot of the time, brands see it as a lower-funnel platform where they’re trying to talk about brand, logo, messaging, and calls to action. You have to be social on social. You have to provide value—whether it’s education, laughter, or elicit some type of emotion. People aren’t required to follow you, so why do they? You have to build that relationship. Brands that do social wrong are mostly just, “Look at me, look at me!” and constantly making calls to action. That’s not how you build true community, no different than a friendship or relationship. For every eight things you give your community, you have then earned the right to ask for two things in return. And the value you give in that 80% needs to be memorable. What are some of the other lessons you’ve learned about social engagement or audience behavior over the years? The power of real-time social, especially in sports, continues to be undervalued. During the Olympics with NBC Sports, we worked back-to-back 12-hour shifts daily and helped them get 6.5 billion impressions in 17 days. Those impressions would cost $50 million if you bought them on the open market. The key is being ready for every moment. If Simone Biles won bronze, silver, or gold, we had content ready for all scenarios with different angles and storylines. Same with Caitlin Clark’s draft. We spent 30 days planning content for before, during, and after she was picked to capitalize on arguably the biggest moment in the Fever’s franchise history. How do you approach data and measurement when creating content strategies and campaigns? We follow the data of what works, but we also pay attention to how different platforms’ algorithms behave. Instagram will serve you something in your feed that happened five days ago, so there are considerations about what goes on Stories versus in-feed. We’re constantly obsessed with data—not just what’s working or not working, but what different post types perform best, whether it’s a reel, carousel, or single post. We’re analyzing timing, post type, static versus video versus carousel, and noticing how algorithms are being optimized differently across Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. We use platforms like Sprout Social and Rival IQ to get super deep with third-party and first-party data. We analyze our top 10 and bottom 10 posts constantly—weekly or monthly—to understand why certain posts underperformed. We look at who was featured, what time it was posted, whether it was a carousel versus a reel. We might notice reels are taking a dive and wonder if the algorithm has changed. Not all engagement metrics are equal, either. Watching something for 3 seconds and scrolling past is much different than watching it for the full 60 seconds. And I believe that one of the most undervalued engagement metrics is shares. If you take time to DM content to a friend saying, “This is so us,” that’s 10 times more important engagement than just a “like” because you’re actually taking time to send it to someone you love. We look seriously at shareability and ask, “Is this something you want to DM your family or best friend?” What about platforms? Which are the most important, and where do you see the most success and engagement? We still see Instagram and TikTok at the top in terms of engagement and virality. From a sports perspective, Twitter is still that real-time water cooler—nobody else holds a candle to it. There have been attempts with platforms like Bluesky, but we saw with the Luka Dončić trade how NBA Twitter just exploded in ways other platforms can’t replicate. Social behavior continues to swing back and forth. Once something becomes too saturated, there’s an opportunity for new platforms or content types to emerge as fresh ways to connect with audiences. The key is being adaptable and understanding where your specific audience lives and engages most authentically. Marketing efforts can often become fragmented across different departments. How should companies think about aligning their social strategy with broader marketing goals? Social and sales teams—even CMOs and marketing teams—often operate separately from social, which is a problem. CMOs should always oversee the social department because it has to ladder up to a greater vision of value prop and audience understanding. Social and community building and fan engagement at the top of the funnel is all to eventually work people down the funnel to become customers and drive revenue generation. If I were a prospective client who came to you and said, “My social strategy sucks. What can I do?” what’s the first piece of advice you would give me? Where would you start? I would ask, “What audience specifically are you trying to grow?” Then we can reverse-engineer a strategy based on what that audience finds valuable, entertaining, and engaging. Are you trying to grow mass audience because you’re a large brand, or are you saturated in one demo but want to diversify? Then, once we identify the target avatar, we can develop a strategy based on what we know works with other brands talking to that same audience. Without figuring out who your customer is at the very top of the conversation, you’re just posting content and hoping it works with no real endgame. So let’s figure out who you’re talking to, what they want most, and how we can meet them where they are and deliver it to them.

On the right bank of the Naviglio Grande, a canal that runs through Italy’s Lombardy region some 20 miles from Milan, the landscape alternates between industrial warehouses and cultivated fields. Along the historic waterway system which dates from the 12th century, there are a series of patrician residences, pleasure villas, and elegant rural farmhouses that still stand, along with what remains of their parks and gardens, side-by-side with more recent houses.The entrance gate of Villa Clari-Monzini, the oldest and largest of the villas on the right bank of the Naviglio canal, to which it was once connected via a tree-lined avenue that continued on the opposite side of the waterway to the nearby Piazza del Teatro. Arriving in Cassinetta di Lugagnano after traveling along the Naviglio bike path, one finds one of the richest towns in the region in terms of its architectural legacy. When the Barlaam family made that same journey, they couldn’t help but notice the Villa Clari-Monzini: “It was in very bad condition, but it was still beautiful and shortly thereafter it was renovated and divided into apartments. We decided to move there, to the main floor of the villa, far from the stress and hassles of the big city,” says Riccardo, Simone’s father. The younger Barlaam is a Paralympic swimming champion who won four gold medals between the recent games in Tokyo and Paris.Cosmos coffee table by Jeffrey Bernett (B&B Italia). Logo lamp, a Chinese checkers board by Joe, and Lawrence ottoman (all Armani/Casa). Simone Barlaam leans against a handcrafted crystal table in the living room of his home. Clothes by Armani. “I grew up here, among the frescoed walls and coffered ceilings of the large ballroom that has become our living room, and ever since I was a child I’ve always felt this house was welcoming. When we lived in Milan I might have dared to scribble on the walls—I was a creative kid—but here I was never tempted to do so,” says Simone, who returns here on weekends to recharge.In the living room, LC4 chaise longue by Le Corbusier (Cassina), handcrafted crystal table, Plywood chairs by Charles and Ray Eames (Vitra). Taraxacum 88 chandelier by Achille Castiglioni (Flos). “When the world shuts down, I find some quiet time to draw. It’s something I do for myself, which makes me feel similar to how I do when I’m in the water.”—Simone BarlaamLate at night, Barlaam invents his alternative heroes inspired by the art he is surrounded by and the Italian comic books by his side during childhood, from Diabolik to Zerocalcare. “When the world shuts down, I find some quiet time to draw. It’s something I do for myself, which makes me feel similar to how I do when I’m in the water when I’m training. It’s an isolation that makes me focus on my body, on lightness, on harmony; I always feel a bit awkward on dry land but in the water I become agile and graceful,” Barlaam says.Dozens and dozens of sheets of paper can be found in the family’s home, essential material for this self-taught drawing talent. Illustrations from the Italian children’s story “Road to Cortina” can also be found in the flat. “In high school I reproduced one of the frescoes in the villa. I recreated it in color, although I usually prefer to work in black and white.” It’s part of his effort to engage an ever-growing audience, and to recount his journey to the 2026 Winter Olympics.Snow, the family’s Samoyed. The kitchen is by Binova, with Corian countertop. Venetian terrazzo floor. In one of the rooms, a reclaimed wood door. Rondò armchair (Armani/Casa). Beside the fireplace, double Parentesi lamp by Achille Castiglioni and Pio Manzù (Flos). Outside, evening descends over the Lombardy countryside and the beautiful back garden. The floors inside of the 17th-century villa are now a light, uniform Venetian terrazzo that highlights the thresholds of doors with a slightly darker hue. (The villa once operated as a spinning mill which irreparably damaged its original floors.) The doors themselves were recovered from the middle of fields where they had been discarded, covered with several layers of varnish. They have now been cleaned and left unfinished, beyond a light wax treatment, giving them their original appearance.

Last week, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok experienced a “bug” that made it tell users about the “white genocide” conspiracy theory in South Africa, even when prompted with questions that had nothing to do with the topic … and soon after, Grok expressed skepticism over the Holocaust death toll, which it chalked up to a “programming error.” But with a degree of mental gymnastics that could put Simone Biles to shame, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has decided that Elon Musk’s robot baby Grok is too far left. Image Credits:Twitter/X (screenshot) “Grok is left leaning and continues to spread fake news and propaganda,” Greene wrote on X. She shared a screenshot in which Grok says that Greene is a Christian who has expressed her belief in Jesus, but concedes that some Christians are troubled by her support for conspiracy theories like QAnon. “Critics, including religious leaders, argue her actions contradict Christian values of love and unity, citing her defense of January 6 and divisive rhetoric,” Grok wrote in the screenshot Greene shared. X was already having a particularly challenging day — the app has been experiencing outages for hours, which could possibly be related to fires that broke out in its Oregon data center yesterday. But while Greene may be a known peddler of harmful misinformation and conspiracies, she did actually make a great point in the end: “When people give up their own discernment, stop seeking the truth, and depend on AI to analyze information, they will be lost,” she said on X. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW